I had a chance to railfan the Miami Airport Tri-Rail (and future Amtrak) station last April. It is like the perfect multi-modal facility as far as I can tell. They thought of everything. Commuter rail - check. Heavy rail - check. Intercity rail - check (one day). Large generous bus bays and bus terminal - check. Automobiles - check. Taxi stand and drive-up lane - check. Bicycles - check (copious parking for bikes). I heard they even have an airport there!

As of last April it looked like the Amtrak passenger ticketing room/waiting room was progressing nicely. And Amtrak was supposed to begin using the station by "fall of 2016." That date has come and gone, and the Silver Star and Silver Meteor are continuing to use the old station. So my question is: Does anyone know when Amtrak is now expected to begin using Miami Airport station? OK, or, in absence of knowledge, does anyone want to speculate on when it may open? I know there's a whole issue with the platforms being too short to accommodate the long-distance consists. Is that the stumbling block? Has that been rectified?

Here are some shots of the shared Tri-Rail platforms and future Amtrak passenger waiting room and ticketing hall, next to Tri-Rail's.

FYI, Trains Magazine has a good story on the latest status of this situation on pp. 24-25 of the January 2018 issue. It seems the issue with the platform lengths has been resolved, "by constructing a highway bypass north to the 28th Street crossing. Now when a train too long for the platform approaches the station, highway signals automatically trigger a traffic reroute." So the only thing pending is lease arrangements between Florida DOT and Amtrak. Which, according to the article, could be resolved as early as January 2018. That's more or less in line with this Miami Herald article from January 29, 2017, that said it would be open by "Winter 2017".